Tag Archives: photography

Night Photography, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Five Night Photographs from Mare Island

November 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

I have so many photographs in the queue right now that I have decided to do something a bit different and post some of them in collections. This first group features night photography from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, a location where I have been doing night photography for about a decade now. As is often the case, this visit was with my friends from The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group.

A street light illuminates tracks running down Railroad Avenue at historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

This is probably one of the iconic views of the nighttime environment at Mare Island, as it was made in a location where many night photographers start, whether it is their first visit or their fiftieth time there. The spot is near the Mare Island Museum, which holds many objects and photographs from the long history of the place as the first important west coast naval ship yard. The tracks – obviously! – given this street its name. The tower is the chimney of the old power plant, and off in the distance more of the old ship yard buildings are visible.

Red light behind the door of an industrial building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

I was interested in the windows, doorway, and wall of this building for several reasons on this visit. First – and night photographers will understand – Mare Island has recently started to see an update of its lighting. As newer and presumably more energy-efficient types of lighting become available, the older lighting gets replaced. Some years ago the move was to the intensely yellow sodium vapor lights (which you can see in other images in this set), but today it is to what I understand are LED systems. Since the ambient light is tremendously important to night photographers, we notice that this produces a significant change in the mood of photographs made here since the LED light seems to have a much more subtle coloration that is closer to what we might regard as daylight. The new lighting has been installed by this building, so I wanted to see how I could use it to make a photograph that still captured the feeling of the night. In addition, I noticed some subtle red interior lights behind the doorway that seem to suggest something a bit mysterious in this scene.

A green tinted shadow falls across the front of a yellow building, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard

There are several things I like about this photograph of the side of a tall building and a lower section casting an odd green shadow. In much night photography we create photographs of things that we actually cannot see – essentially we are making photographs of what the camera sees. Standing in front of this scene it was very, very dark and the details of the building wall was barely visible at all. However, after shooting this stuff for some time I can recognize what might happen with an exposure long enough to make this scene visible. The old sodium vapor lamps are still installed along this street, and I knew that their yellow light would have a powerful effect on the colors of the scene. I also know that where there is a shadow that is not illuminated by sodium vapor light, the shadow will take on the colors of other kinds of ambient lighting – in this case a relatively green type of light coming from a nearby open area. In the end, without actually doing any light painting (the process of using colored lights and gels to illuminate the subject) I was able to make a photograph that is “naturally” just as wildly colorful.

Metal wall with white doors, window, and Reserved Parking sign

The plain and simple geometry of this building and its front wall has attracted me for several years, with its vertical lines, square forms of the door and the shadows, and the surprising orange highlights – and I have photographed it before. This building is now also lit by the newer lighting, so I had to see what I could do with this new coloration. I made two photographs of it. This one is a simple, straight-on view that is “about” the angular and square forms and the thin lines of orange paint and asphalt, with the only curves coming from the shadows in the window and a bit of broken-off pipe near the bottom center.

White door on a metal building with industrial structures of Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in the distance

This is a different take on the same wall, here composed off-center so that some of the darker ship yard machinery and structures can be seen.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Twenty Minutes of Street Photography – Six Photographs

October 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 9 Comments

I was in San Francisco this morning for a demo/announcement of new Google Plus features and after the event I had a bit of extra time on my walk back to the Caltrain station – 20 minutes to be precise. So, just for fun, the results (most of them at least) of 20 minutes of street shooting in The City.

It might seem odd to some that a photographer who does so much landscape work would be interested in photographing the sometimes-gritty urban environment of San Francisco. There is a lot I could write about this, but I’ll limit myself to a few ideas here. First, to some extent I think of photographing the urban environment as an extension of landscape photograph – let’s call it “urban landscape.” Second, shooting handheld while on the move leads to a different way of seeing that is quicker and more “improvisational” (to use a term from my music background), and this is, if nothing else, a great exercise in seeing.

Woman with Phone, Tall Building. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013, 11:01AM.

I had stopped to try to photograph a woman pushing a stroller with this wall as a backdrop. She walked out of the frame too quickly, but I managed to grab this one of the solitary woman against the same backdrop.

MUNI Bus Yard. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:03AM.

A moment later and on the other side of the street, I walked past this MUNI yard full of buses ready to head out.

Woman and Dog, Brown Building. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:04AM.

One minute later and back on the other side of the street once again, I saw this interesting structure and a woman with a dog fortuitously walked in front at just that moment. This photograph is about many things, but the colors are quite important.

Pedestrian, Sidewalk. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:16AM.

Slacking now, it was 12 minutes between the previous photograph and this one… ;-) Here I was trying to figure out my best route and I think I wandered around a bit without shooting, but then I saw this low building which was covered with swatches of paint that had been applied to cover graffiti. Once again, I was lucky and a pedestrian walked into the frame just as I was ready to shoot it.

Autumn Leaf, Sidewalk. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:19AM.

After making a wrong turn I ended up walking around a block and back up towards where I started. While walking I saw this leaf and photographed it quickly without looking through the viewfinder.

Garage and Fence. San Francisco, California. October 29, 2013. 11:21AM.

A moment later and on the other side of the street from the leaf, I saw this small lot and the light blue building with the roll-up door, and the bright sky beyond. Initially I wanted to include the more of the building to the left along with a street light near its corner. So I made a few exposures of that, pausing as traffic passed by, and then made this one that eliminated all of the left-side building except for the tall wall facing the lot.

At this point I realized I had a train to catch, and one stop to make on the way there…

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Buttnick Mfg. Co.

October 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A person wearing a backpack walks in front of the Buttnick Mfg. Co. building in Seattle, Washington

OK, I admit that this isn’t perhaps an easy photograph to warm up to and, yes, the guy is way out of focus. As often happens when wandering the streets of some city – or, frankly, with other kinds of photography, too – one thing caught my attention and once I looked I saw other things… and then there was an unexpected accident. Despite rumors to the contrary, sometimes photography works that way. (To reassure some of you, photographs also work the opposite way sometimes – carefully thought out and made in a state of prolonged contemplation.)

As we walked past this corner, for some reason the name “Buttnick Mfg. Co.” caught my attention all by itself. This, and the visual appearance of the sign got me thinking about how the presentation and appearance of commercial entities has changed. Today, if “Buttnick Mfg. Co.” was starting up in this part of Seattle or almost any other relatively large city, there would be plastic signs, a carefully contrived sign designed to present and foster a particular way of viewing the firm, electronic lights, and probably a motto along the lines of, “Innovative Design and Manufacturing for Today’s Buttnick Buyer.” But this sign was probably painted by some local sign-painter and it offers nothing more than the name of the company, which is probably the name of the founder and perhaps someone who actually worked there. But, urban development being what it is, it looks to me like Buttnick is probably no longer to be found, and instead we see a group of smaller shops inside the building. (There now are electronic signs in the window and there is a SALE going on.) About that person in the photograph… while I was planning to include the people on the far side of the street as they walked in front of the building, the out-of-focus, photobombing, Seattle street person was entirely accidental – but somehow appropriate.

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Urban/Street

Pedestrian, Steps

September 20, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sidewalk steps lead to a lower roadway, where a pedestrian crosses the street

This is another of the photographs done street photography style in Seattle in August, when we had a free day between some other events that took us to that city. On this morning we had started at Pike Place Market, the well-known tourist spot, and then walked south into the more central downtown area and eventually towards the south side of downtown.

I recall that the first time I visited downtown Seattle many years ago I was surprised by the multiple levels in some parts of the city, especially along the waterfront. Across the street from the water, a major highway runs high above on a viaduct. Between the viaduct and the main downtown there is a very short, steep hill (almost a cliff in some spots) leading up to the next level of streets above. (The multiple level effect is seen elsewhere, too, such as near the convention center.) As we walked along one of those upper streets, this steep staircase led to a lower level street and some parking, and a pedestrian continuing on toward the waterfront walks through the light coming down the cross street.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: photography

Five Night Photographs from Mare Island

Twenty Minutes of Street Photography – Six Photographs

Buttnick Mfg. Co.

Pedestrian, Steps

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.